Workaround for green screen during video playback on Mac (TV app or Safari)
Here is a workaround/solution out there for anyone in the community who runs into troubles with video playback on a Mac getting a sudden and dramatic green tint (see example photo below). Past posts have described these symptoms, but those threads are locked so I'll leave this here and hope people find it who need it. I have experienced the problem myself in Safari while streaming video from websites like YouTube, and in Apple's TV app while playing a movie in fullscreen as soon as all menus and onscreen controls have disappeared from view. I have confirmed the issue in Mojave and Catalina, and have seen it reported in as recent a MacOS version as Monterey.
Luckily, the workaround I have found is very simple, and I imagine most people will find no downside to it. In short, you just need to change your Display Profile.
Here's a step-by-step:
- If you currently have green-tinted video showing on screen, close the video
- Open System Preferences
- Choose Displays
- Go to the "Color" tab/section
- Look at the list of Display Profiles, and note which profile is currently selected/highlighted. (Is it sRGB IEC61966-2.1? In my experience, it is always sRGB IEC61966-2.1.)
- Select a different profile from the list
- Be aware, different profiles can shift the color appearance of your display in various ways. Some will change things more drastically than others. But don't worry, as long as you noted the profile you started with, you can always put it back to where you started.
- You might find a profile that doesn't shift your display at all; if you do, I recommend trying that as your fix. Otherwise, choose one that causes the least noticeable shift, or otherwise pleases your eye.
- In my experience, a seemingly perfect match for sRGB IEC61966-2.1 was the one simply named Display. And the one called Thunderbolt Display was a near match.
And that's it, just changing the display profile to any other profile was enough to eliminate the green tint for me. I hope this helps someone.
Here's an example of the problem: